seeds Fruit Heat and Germination Time?

[DocNrock]

I've gathered from these forums that the C. chinense species cultivars take longer than the other species to germinate. Is this true? It makes me wonder if germination time has any correlation to the heat of the pods that the plants produce.

It would seem many of you have grown peppers for a number of years. Is this something that any of you have noticed, or does it not correlate, at all? Like the later the sprout, the hotter the pepper? I ask because my Butch T's sprouted very quickly, then the Bhuts came, and today I just got my first hook on my Douglahs. Any order to the heat or just random nature stuff?

Thanks.

 

[SanPatricio]

“It all depends" -- in my experience, I think the source and handling of the seeds, maturity of the pod at harvest, the care in drying and storage all play a part. My common garden peppers have germinated in a few days where my superhots sometimes germinated as quickly or differed by three weeks (that is- the same variety of seeds planted side by side sprouted one at a time over as much as three weeks). I had a Cumari in one cell that I gave up on after three weeks. I just set it aside, came back a week later and it was growing great. I have a very healthy chinense that is otherwise unknown because I dumped some dud cells into a pot to reclaim the starter mix. A couple of weeks later I found a sturdy sprout growing in the discarded mix.
My Trinidad superhots were slower to germinate but my limited experience with supeerhots doesn’t give me enough data to back that up as general fact. .

 

[Prehensile]

Chinese seem to take longer.

 

[Dave2000]

Agreed, chinense take longer but beyond that there isn't necessarily any correlation between heat level and germination time.

However, if you are anxious what you might do is rinse them with a 1:10 OTC hydrogen peoxide to water solution to kill any potential fungi on the seed then soak it in water for a day. Then again this will probably only shave 2 or 3 days off the total time taken and you spent one of those days waiting for them to soak.

Overall (within same species) it may have more to do with the quality of the seed, how fresh it is, how /how-much it was dried, how hot it got in storage or in the mail route to you, etc.

 

[DocNrock]

Thanks for all the feedback. Please allow me to clarify. The Butch T, Bhuts, and Douglahs were all obtained from the same source as seed, and were mailed together. I soaked them all overnight in separate cups using water that had been boiled, then per quart had a cup of chammomile tea and 1/4 cup H2O2 added. They were sprouted in a Jiffy mini-greenhouse with a heater pad. The first Butch T sprouted within 4 days. I didn't see the first Bhut hook until about a week. Just today I saw the first Douglah hook, about 1 1/2 weeks.

I also figured out fresh seeds must germinate way faster than those that have been dried. I got a Brain Strain pod and planted the seeds in the same way. In three days I had multiple sprouts, like over half of them.